


Nine Months

by CastleriggCircle (BanjoOnMyKnee)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childbirth, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanjoOnMyKnee/pseuds/CastleriggCircle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Crane leaves Sleepy Hollow the morning after Henry and Katrina's deaths...and returns 9 months later to make a VERY unexpected discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So after reading [this interview with Tom Mison,](http://dailydragon.dragoncon.org/interviews/man-out-of-time-an-interview-with-tom-mison/) where he mentions an ~9-month break between S2 and S3, as someone who's already working on a pregnancy fic where Past!Crane and Abbie had sex in 1781...I couldn't resist the urge to take a little break from Trust & Love for a secret baby story. It's sort of an AU of my existing AU--what if Crane had run away after the events of the S2 finale instead of sticking around?
> 
> That said, I promise to get right back to work on Trust & Love now that this is finished, and hope to have the next chapter up within a week.

If the others had been even a trifle more insistent that he not return to the cabin alone that first night, Crane might never have left Sleepy Hollow. But he hadn’t wanted to be a burden to his friends—or, if he was being truly honest with himself, he had flinched away from the pity in their eyes.

So he returned alone to a cabin filled with ghosts, guilt, and self-recrimination—and in the midst of it all, one piece of welcome news in the form of letters from a banker. A few weeks ago, Crane had been contacted by a representative of the Masons, who had told him that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the others, aware that when he awakened in an unknown future he would require some means of support, had entrusted funds to that brotherhood’s care. Silently shepherded by the Masons over the centuries, that trust now brought an income of around fifty thousand dollars per year.

The representative had apologized profusely for not coming to him sooner. Apparently that portion of the organization had been in some disarray after the deaths of its Sleepy Hollow members. But though Crane would always regret his failure to prevent that bloodbath, he considered it just as well that he had gone almost two years in ignorance of the inheritance. Now he had sufficient understanding of this century’s money to realize that fifty thousand a year, despite its impressive sound, was closer to the income of a vicar of his time than that of a duke.

He hadn’t spoken of the matter to the Lieutenant yet, wanting to surprise her with the good news once all was settled and he no longer needed her support. To make up for the delay, the Masonic banker had agreed to disburse two years’ income as a single lump sum. Crane had thanked him, but asked that the money be split evenly between him and Lieutenant Mills. 

And now all was arranged. He had his own account, and with it the nigh-magical plastic cards that would grant him access to it almost anywhere in the world. For the Lieutenant, there were instructions on what identification she needed to present and which documents she needed to sign to claim her share.

He’d intended to surprise her with it over dinner some fine evening. But now it seemed providential that at this precise moment he’d been granted both the means to repay his debt to her and to support himself indefinitely.

He could _go._ He could flee this cabin of unhappy memory, of faith broken, of failure. He would no longer be a burden to his friends, who must surely be as weary of him and his troubles as he was of himself.

He was not running away, he assured himself even as he reached for his best writing paper and pen—this was no matter for a text message, no matter how many _emojis_ he might deploy to express the tumult of his soul. On the contrary, he was giving himself, he was giving the Lieutenant and Miss Jenny, some much needed space to come to terms with all that had come to pass. How often had he heard the people of this century, either in person or on television, state that they _needed space_ to cope with some crisis or grief?

Well, now _he_ needed space. Wasn’t that very twenty-first century of him?

But faced with the need to bid a proper farewell to his Lieutenant—to Abbie, though he would not use that familiarity on the page, not now when everything in him cried for separation—the formal cadences of his native era sprang naturally to mind. He opened with _My dear Lieutenant Mills,_ thanked her for all her exertions and expenses on his behalf over the past two years, and carefully explained the Masonic trust and his decision to give her a part of it.

After the briefest of hesitations, he added a paragraph expressing his desire to take advantage of his newfound wealth—his newfound solvency, at least—to live and travel in solitude for a time. If his services as Witness were required, he assured her, she need only call or text, and he would return to Sleepy Hollow with all due haste.

He lingered longest, of all things, over how to sign the missive. He had written a formal letter, he was leaving town, he knew not for how long—the letter therefore cried out for an _I remain, respectfully, etc., I. Crane,_ such as he might have signed himself when writing to a fellow officer in his day. Yet a prickling of conscience, a reminder of where and when he was, of all that the Lieutenant had been to him, suggested that she would find such a farewell hurtfully cold. Blinking hard—no, he would go, he must go, she would understand—he settled upon a familial, informal _Ever yours most affectionately, I.C._

He folded the letter neatly, wrote her name upon it, and set it atop the instructions the banker had provided for her. She would find it tomorrow, he knew, for she had assured him she would arrive early the next day to take him for coffee and donut holes. When he failed to answer her knock, in her concern for him she would let herself in. She had done so often enough before.

On a day when she had no duties at her precinct, the earliest _early_ might be was nine in the morning. By that time Crane’s train had deposited him in Grand Central Station, and he was gaping in dizzy, disoriented wonder at what Manhattan had become since last he’d seen it.


	2. Chapter 2

He did not linger in New York City. Next he traveled to Philadelphia, where he visited Independence Hall and thought of Abbie as he bit his tongue to keep himself from correcting the tour guide’s history. He lingered anxiously by the Liberty Bell, but if this version bore any enchantments for good or ill, they were beyond his powers of detection.

From there he traveled to the nation’s capital and, as he wandered among the monuments and museums, wondered what the George Washington he had known would’ve made of his namesake city.

For himself, he longed for more solitude than these bustling cities could offer him. He bought a tent and an assortment of camping gear, then followed up on a Craigslist ad to buy a motorcycle. He persuaded the seller to give him a few lessons on how to ride and care for it and then headed out into the vast—though hardly uncharted—American countryside.

On a late March night a little over a month into his journey, it first occurred to him that he had treated Abbie very badly at least since Katrina’s arrival in this century, and that leaving her a letter and a bank account, as if a fee for services rendered, was hardly adequate recompense for all she had done for him. He owed her at the very least an abject apology, not to mention the kind of unconditional loyalty and support she had so consistently bestowed upon him. He’d been an ass. He’d acted as if the world revolved around him and him alone. Though he’d had his share of grief and guilt to endure, fleeing from those who would have eased his burden no longer seemed so generous and unselfish an act.

His fingers twitched at his phone, hovering over her name at the top of his list of contacts. But he shut it off and put it back in his pocket. _I’m sorry_ seemed too simple a thing to say. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. He needed to earn it, somehow, and how could he? She didn’t have need of him, or she surely would have tried to contact him herself by now. Perhaps with Moloch destroyed and Henry and Katrina defeated, the apocalypse had been averted, and he and the Lieutenant were merely former Witnesses, nothing more to each other unless they chose to be. If so, surely he owed it to her to leave her alone if she wished it, to let her get on with her life in whatever manner she chose.

So the next morning and for weeks and months to come, he rode farther south and farther west, putting more miles between himself and his erstwhile destiny. After a time his self-imposed solitude became intolerable, and he began lingering in diners and coffee shops, talking to his fellow Americans, who took him for an English tourist and for the most part were eager to show him the best face of their homeland.

Every day he took pictures, and every time one turned out especially well he yearned to send it to Abbie. But even as his fingers composed a description, he would wonder why he should send _this_ statue, _this_ mountain, _this_ parade, or _this_ delectable deep-fried county fair abomination when he hadn’t sent last week’s battlefield monument, waterfall, pow-wow, or barbecue platter.

Here and there he happened upon supernatural trouble of one kind or another, and he always did all in his power to defeat the demon or break the curse in question. Those battles gave him a momentary sense of purpose, though never did he miss Abbie more than at the moment of triumph when there was no dear partner at his side to share his relief and satisfaction with a _fist-bump_ followed by drinks and song. And yet the longer he went without contacting her, the more pathetic any attempt seemed.

By autumn, he reached the West Coast. He’d lost his aversion to cities, and he spent pleasant weeks in San Francisco and Portland before fetching up in Seattle in November. The locals he met assured him he was not seeing their city at its best—so rainy! so dark!—but laughed ruefully when he assured them the climate and short late autumn days reminded him of England, and he therefore felt perfectly at home.

He did not, however, feel at home enough to consider staying. By the middle of the month he was meditating upon his next destination when suddenly he was seized by what he could only describe as a compulsion to return to Sleepy Hollow.

_Abbie needs you._

How wonderful. Now he was hearing voices in his head. _No, she does not,_ he argued. _If she did, she knows how to find me._

But he could not shake the urge or the voice, and after a night of alternating insomnia and nightmares, he swallowed a lingering fear of a particular modern technology and bought a ticket on the earliest flight he could find to carry him back to New York.


	3. Chapter 3

The airport and flight were ordeals enough to distract him from his panic and bewilderment until his plane landed—most jarringly, he thought, though the others in his row seemed unperturbed. Never since his first weeks in this era had he been obliged to work harder to present a calm, knowledgeable face while filled with such terror and confusion within. He hadn’t succeeded so well as he’d hoped, either, for the woman seated beside him in the aisle seat had spotted him for a nervous flyer and cited various comforting statistics about what a safe mode of travel this was before abandoning him for her e-reader as soon as the plane reached _cruising altitude._

But now he was safely on earth again, and muttering curses because his phone had chosen now of all possible moments in the past nine months to be utterly unable to find a signal. For all the hours it took to make his way from JFK home to Sleepy Hollow by subway and then train, he tried to call and text Abbie with increasing desperation but without the least success.

In the end, he took a taxi straight to her house. Naturally, no car stood in the driveway. When he rang the doorbell and knocked, no one answered, though the porch light was on. Peering through the open blinds—so unlike her, to forget to close them—he could see that at least she had not moved away, for he recognized her sofa and coffee table and her pictures on the wall.

He heard approaching footsteps and turned, but it was only the next-door neighbor’s daughter, a leggy girl of fourteen or fifteen. Miss Alexa, if he recalled correctly.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Haven’t seen you around in ages.”

“I’ve been traveling.”

She gave an adolescent shrug-nod, at once accepting and unconcerned. “Well, she’s not there. She and her sister went to the hospital hours ago.”

His heart raced. “The hospital?”

“To have the baby,” she said, as if this should be obvious.

_What?_ “Which one of them is having a baby?” he asked.

Miss Alexa frowned at him. “How long have you been gone, anyway? Abbie, of course. I swear she’s been _this big_ since September.” She mimed an enormous belly.

Crane slumped against the locked door. “Nine months,” he said. “I’ve been away nine months.”

“Really?” She sniffed suspiciously, and he bit back the urge to tell her to put an end to whatever dreadful thoughts were coursing through her mind, because it certainly wasn’t his baby.

“I don’t suppose you know which hospital they’ve gone to,” he said patiently.

“The one here in town. At least, I think that’s what my mom said. But I don’t know if they’ll want visitors.”

He inclined his head. “Thank you for letting me know.”

_Now_ his phone favored him with a signal, so he summoned another cab, then sent texts to both Abbie and Miss Jenny. The latter responded just as the taxi pulled up to the curb.

_So this is the moment you decide to come home? Come to the 4th floor waiting room and text me when you get there._

Fortunately the cab driver seemed to divine that Crane was in no mood for conversation, so the fifteen-minute drive to the hospital was a quiet one. What had happened? Well, he supposed the _what_ was obvious enough, but the why and how eluded him. The timing could be no coincidence; this child must have been conceived very close to what he thought of simply as That Day. Unless she’d concealed it very well, Abbie hadn’t been involved with anyone before he left. He’d run away—had she sought a different kind of comfort and oblivion? It could not have been a serious, permanent connection, for Miss Alexa had said nothing about a husband or boyfriend accompanying the Mills sisters.

Good God, she had been enduring all this, and she had not told him? Had she thought that he wouldn’t care, or, worse, that he would pass judgment upon her for having a child out of wedlock? He’d been in this century long enough to get past that, and besides, this was _Abbie._ Hadn’t she known he’d want to support her in anything so momentous as this?

Well, no, he supposed she hadn’t. He’d told her to let him know if she needed him as a Witness. He’d said nothing about coming back if she needed his friendship.

He was truly an ass. He almost looked forward to the peal Miss Jenny would doubtless ring over his head, for surely it was no more than he deserved.

So when she stalked into the waiting room, a righteous avenging angel in dun-colored trousers and white t-shirt, he stood and meekly awaited his chastisement.

“I ought to slug you into next week,” she said, her voice low even though no one else was in the room, “but the nursing station can see us from here, and I’d probably get us both kicked out, which wouldn’t do Abbie any good.”

He agreed that it would not, but offered himself for any violence she deemed just once all this was over.

“Be careful what you wish for, since I might just decide to kill you. This is all your fault, you know.”

Even in his newfound awareness of his own selfish weaknesses, Crane wasn’t willing to accept quite one hundred percent of the blame. “Surely not _all._ I was very wrong to leave, and more wrong still to go so long without sending any word, but I fail to see how I am responsible for the pregnancy of a woman I have yet to so much as kiss.”

Miss Jenny sniffed. “Well, you did a whole lot more than just kiss her when she was back in 1781.”

Dear God. Was she saying what he thought she was? His knees wobbled, and he leaned a hand against the wall to steady himself.

“That’s right. Congratulations,” she said acidly. “You’re about to be a father.”


	4. Chapter 4

He sought words, but they were unwontedly slow in coming. “I…this…” 

“If you hadn’t decided to go on walkabout, you could’ve found out about this back in March when we did and taken your time freaking out along with us.” Her voice held not a hint of sympathy. “Now, Abbie needs me. Are you coming with, or not?”

He swallowed hard and stood straight. This was a time for action. Explanations, and making sense of what happened, must necessarily wait till later. “Of course I am. But please—tell me, is she in any danger?” He knew enough about two centuries of advances in medicine to know that childbirth was far safer than it had been in his day, but safer did not always mean safe. “I had the strongest compulsion starting two days ago that she needed me and I must return at once.”

“Two days ago? Where were you?”

Her narrowed eyes implied that he had been slow, but he had made all the haste he could. “Seattle.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t think she’s in _danger_ danger, but the baby is a week past its due date and showing no sign whatsoever of wanting to come out. They had room on the schedule for an induction today, so we jumped at the chance. You see, once you start getting closer to two weeks past due, it is dangerous, at least for the baby.” 

She turned to leave the waiting room, and he fell into step at her side. “Induction?” he asked.

“Using medicine to start labor. But so far it doesn’t seem to be working. Her doctor is thinking c-section—Caesarian section, that is, cutting the baby out—but Abbie doesn’t want to go there.”

“I should think not.” He shuddered in horror at the thought.

“Hey, those are really safe now. It’s just that it’s surgery, and a much longer recovery time. She’s going to be OK, one way or another. But, much as I’d like to kill you, I’m glad you came back.”

“So am I,” he said fervently. “Although—does she want me here? I thought, perhaps, since you were the one who texted…”

“Oh, she does. She’s just not in a position to use her phone right now. They don’t really like patients live-tweeting their hospital stays. Anyway, we’re almost there, second door down on the left.”

Now his heart pounded again. What must Abbie think of him? What was he to say to her? He paused in the doorway even as Miss Jenny strolled in. “Look what the cat dragged in,” she said.

“Abbie,” he breathed. Somehow the great swell of her belly only made her look tinier and more vulnerable than he had ever seen her, propped up sitting in a bed that bent in the middle like an outsized chair, with a woman in bright blue medical scrubs standing at her side. She was tethered to at least three devices Crane couldn’t identify, and she looked utterly exhausted.

But her eyes were as they had ever been, dark and luminous. And when she lifted her one free hand to beckon to him, there was nothing for it but to rush to her side and embrace her as best as he could without displacing any of those mysterious tubes and wires. He shook with sobs he could no longer repress, and he felt her tears against his neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he whispered.

She drew back a little. “You should’ve called.”

“A million times over.”

“But I should have, too. I almost did.”

Miss Jenny let out a fake sneeze. _“Idiots.”_

Abbie rolled her eyes and slid her hand down from his shoulder to grasp his hand. When their palms touched, something like an electrical shock, yet without pain, seemed to flow between them. Her eyes widened, and she winced. Crane tried to pull away, but she only tightened her grip, interweaving her fingers with his.

“Holy shit,” she said, turning to the woman, whose name tag identified her as Melanie Hong, M.D. “I think…that might be an actual contraction.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dr. Hong laid a hand on Abbie’s stomach, then studied one of the screens arrayed beside the bed. “You’re right. How does it feel?”

Abbie didn’t speak for several seconds, not until she loosened her grip on Crane’s hand and sagged back against her pillows. “Like a menstrual cramp from hell. But I can take it.”

A slight movement in his peripheral vision drew Crane’s eye, and he saw that Miss Jenny was watching them narrowly while playing with the star-shaped pendant of the silver-and-topaz necklace she wore.

“Any time you want to talk about pain relief…” the doctor began.

Abbie shook her head. “I’m nowhere near the point where sticking a needle in my spine sounds like a good idea.”

Crane couldn’t imagine how such a treatment could _relieve_ pain, and he winced at the thought.

The motion drew the doctor’s attention, and she regarded him with cool professional interest. “And you are, sir?” she asked.

He inclined his head politely. “Ichabod Crane.” That was the simple part of the answer. He looked searchingly to Abbie. He didn’t doubt Miss Jenny had told him the truth, but did Abbie _want_ him to claim it here and now, like this? Her thumb brushed the back of his hand. In encouragement? In reassurance? He took a deep breath. “The father.”

With a trembly nod, Abbie pulled him closer until they were forehead to forehead, their shaking breaths mingling.

“I see…” Dr. Hong said.

Crane drew back a little and glanced at her. She was watching them with a kind of wary amazement…and how baffling must this look to her, to have a child’s father appear out of nowhere in such a fashion? 

“He stays,” Abbie said firmly, and he nodded.

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is. And—would it be possible for us to have a few minutes alone? We have…some catching up to do.”

“I think so,” the doctor said. “You’re doing fine now, and we’ve got all these monitors to tell us if that changes.” She noticed Crane’s cocked head and curious frown and pointed to each screen. “That one is for Abbie’s vital signs—her heart rate and blood pressure—and this is the contraction monitor, finally seeing some action. And that’s the fetal heart rate.”

“It’s much faster,” he noted. 

“It’s supposed to be.” She regarded him thoughtfully. “Do you have any prior experience with childbirth, Mr. Crane?”

He hesitated for only a racing infant heartbeat or two before saying, “No. Not really.” Surely Katrina’s Moloch-pregnancy…didn’t count. And he couldn’t possibly explain his memories of his mother’s screams on the day shortly after his own twelfth birthday when she’d died giving birth to a stillborn daughter. Not to the good doctor, and especially not to Abbie, who must not be frightened at such a time.

“Well,” Dr. Hong said briskly, “if you’re staying, then do as we tell you, especially if it’s to get out of the way. And remember, labor almost always sounds more frightening than it is. Abbie is very healthy and fit, and she’s had a textbook normal pregnancy up until this kid took it in its head to stay put when it ought to come out. Oh, and if you feel you’re about to faint, sit down there and put your head between your knees.” She indicated a chair in the corner.

“I will not faint,” he said in his most dignified manner.

She shrugged as she stepped away from the bed. “Well, if you do after all, you won’t be the first, nor the last.” With that parting shot, she slipped quietly into the corridor, but Miss Jenny lingered.

Abbie frowned. “Um, Jenny, usually when a woman asks to talk to a man alone, her kid sister leaves, too. Maybe tries to listen through the door, but—oof!” Her grip on his hand tightened again.

“Another contraction?” Miss Jenny asked.

Abbie simply nodded.

“Well, stop holding your breath, then. You know better.” She turned to Crane. “If I leave you two alone, you’ve got to promise to make her breathe.”

That seemed a simple enough task. “I will.”

“Good.” She returned her attention to her sister. “That’s it, in through your nose and out through your mouth, nice and steady.”

Once the contraction had passed, Abbie released Crane’s hand for just long enough to make shooing motions towards Miss Jenny, who shook her head. “Look, I’ll go in a minute, but don’t you understand what happened there? He just unlocked your magic.”

Crane looked from one sister to the other, then realized his mouth had fallen open and resolutely closed it. What else had been going on in his absence?

“You’re saying that’s why I wasn’t going into labor on my own?” Abbie said. “Really?”

Miss Jenny spread her hands, palms upward. “All I know is what I saw. You two touched hands, and suddenly all those knots that have been binding your magical energies just went away. And as for the labor part—it’s not like a witch’s magic is entirely separate from her physical nature. But maybe it’s just the Pitocin finally kicking in. Who knows?”

“A witch’s magic…” Crane began. “And how can you _see_ that?”

“Jenny’s a witch now,” Abbie said. “She’s been practicing ever since—well, since just after you left.”

“Hey, you’re one, too.” Miss Jenny gave Abbie an encouraging nod. “You just haven’t been able to access it before now.”

Witches. Both witches. Crane’s mind spun almost as much as it had when Miss Alexa had so blithely informed him Abbie was having a baby.

“Hey.” Abbie tugged at his hand until he met her eyes. “Grace Dixon explained it to me, when I was in 1781. It’s through her lineage. Totally different kind of witchcraft than Katrina’s was.”

That was comforting, but Miss Jenny tossed her head. “And would that even matter, as long as we used our powers for good?”

Crane had never felt less qualified to debate such a question. “I…”

“Jenny, I love you,” Abbie said, “but please _go away._ ”


	6. Chapter 6

After Miss Jenny left, Crane and Abbie watched each other in silence for a long moment.

Abbie shook her head with a rueful little laugh. “There’s so much to say I don’t even know where to start.”

“Likewise.” He took a deep breath. “But the one thing I must say again is how sorry I am. I should never have left.”

“Hey. You _didn’t know._ There was no way you could have, and I understand about wanting to run away. I’ve done it too often myself. But you didn’t have to stay gone so long, and the least you could’ve done is let us know you were alive every so often.”

He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “I know. It’s no excuse—but all I can say is that the longer I went without sending word, the more inadequate anything I could’ve said would’ve been. At least, so I believed at the time.”

“Just don’t do it again, OK?”

“I give you my word,” he said solemnly.

“That’s a start, but talk is cheap. I’d rather have your deeds.”

“Those, too,” he assured her, vowing to himself that it would be so. Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed…

Her grip on his hand tightened. “And…contraction.”

He watched her to see that she breathed, but this time she needed no reminders. “That was something else,” she muttered when it was over. “I may change my mind about that epidural—the needle in the spine thing. It’s a partial anesthetic, numbs the pain without knocking you out.”

“Ah. I see.”

She considered him, her head tilted to one side. “So. What have you been doing with yourself the past nine months?”

He shrugged. Now that he was here with her, it all seemed so self-indulgent. “Camping, for the most part. And traveling around the country by motorcycle.”

Now she grinned. “Really? You have a bike now?”

“Had. I was obliged to abandon it in Seattle this morning when I flew back here. I—I knew I had to come, somehow.”

“Hooray for mysterious magical compulsions.” She sighed. “I’m not used to it, either. Jenny’s the natural. Anyway, maybe you can buy another one, now that you have an income and all.”

“I might,” he said, though if she wanted him to stay beyond the birth, surely a car would be more practical. One could not safely transport a baby by motorcycle. “You found my letter, I hope, and the bank account.”

“Yeah, the next morning. I was pretty pissed off at first—as if any of this was ever about the _money,_ and that letter was so _formal_ —but it did come in handy. Paid off some debts, got that red leather jacket I had my eye on. And when I found out about this” –she drew their joined hands over her stomach, and his breath caught— “there was still enough left to set aside to start a college fund for this kid. Our kid.”

Her stomach was taut and solid under his hand, as real and vivid as any sensation he’d ever experienced. But some part of him still expected to wake up at any moment from this strange dream where he had somehow fathered a child with a woman he dearly loved, but had never lain with. “If I may ask…” he began.

“You can ask anything you want.”

“What happened in 1781? Between us, that is. When you spoke about it just after…you came back, you didn’t so much as hint…”

“I couldn’t then, not right after…what happened with Katrina. And then you were gone. That would’ve been hard enough to say in person, but a text or phone call? I couldn’t. And I didn’t know how you’d take it, after how you left.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I know.” Now her eyes were stern. “You’ve said it enough.”

He read her unspoken message. _Now live it._

“Anyway,” she said, “I told you the truth then—just not all of it. I guess the short version is we had to wait overnight for Grace’s spell to be ready, and we’d already realized how attracted we were to each other. We thought the next morning we’d either be killed or the timeline would be erased—which is pretty much the same thing—so we spent the night together. It…it was the only thing in the world to do, at that moment.”

He nodded. He could imagine it so heart-achingly well. What else would he possibly want to do with his last night on earth, if he had the chance to spend it in her arms?

“And then Grace’s spell didn’t undo my experience of the timeline like we expected it to—Jenny has her theories on that, by the way—so here I am.”

“I…that’s…” He shook his head. 

“You’re allowed to freak out. I know I—oh, damn, contraction.”

“I wish I’d known,” he said afterward. “I would’ve come straight back.”

She smiled, but with a lurking hint of sadness. “You’re here now.”

“Here to stay. If you’ll have me.”

Her smile grew more genuine. “Oh, I will. With that trust fund of yours, you can take care of the baby when I have to go back to work, and I can stop sweating about where I stand on the waiting list at every daycare in town.”

Crane blinked. He’d never cared for a baby, hardly ever so much as held one. In his time, he would certainly not have been placed in charge of one’s care, for that was the very definition of women’s work. But this century must become his time now—it would be his son or daughter’s era—and he’d certainly observed many fathers caring for infants here. “I…will learn to do that,” he said.

“Good. I’ll be learning as I go along, too. I’ll give you all the books I’ve been reading.”

Even in this, he felt his usual sense of peace and reassurance upon learning that there were books ready to come to his aid. “Have you settled on a name?” he asked. “And is it a boy or a girl? I know people find out in advance, now.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But I didn’t. I decided not to ask. I got so sick of everyone asking me whether I wanted a boy or a girl, and when would I find out, and all that. Plus, I wanted to at least wait till after the baby was born to get deluged with pink princess stuff or trucks and trains and sports logos. As for names, I have ideas…but I never could decide if I wanted to be reminded of you or not, back when I thought I might never see you again.” 

He resisted the urge to apologize again. “I would never expect you to name the child after me.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to go _that_ far. But when I wanted to remember you, I was thinking of something that started with I. Isaiah or Ian, for a boy. Ivy or Isabel, for a girl.”

“Perhaps in combination with an A name?” he suggested. They were in this together now, after all. At least, that was his firm intention.

She considered for a moment, then nodded. “August, if it’s a boy.”

“For Sheriff Corbin.” He could think of nothing more appropriate. “My mother’s name was Anna. Which is from the Hebrew for _grace,_ as I recall. Doubly fitting.”

“I like it.” She laughed. “That was easy. I know couples who argue about names for months.”

“I daresay if we’d had months, we would have, too.”

She grinned, and Crane felt a tiny spark of joy within himself. Despite everything, he began to hope their bond would prove strong enough even for this.


	7. Chapter 7

When he looked back on that night, Crane could never decide if it was the longest or the shortest of his life. As Abbie’s contractions steadily grew closer together and more intense, he held her hand and rubbed her back as requested and tried to make sense of Dr. Hong and the nurses’ medical commentary without doing anything so disruptive as to ask what was going on. He might not understand childbirth or twenty-first century medicine, but he’d spent enough time in the military and in the company of the police to recognize the difference between an officer who truly believed all was going well and one who merely wished to disguise danger from those under his command. Dr. Hong had the quiet steadiness of the former sort, so he did his best to believe all would be well.

Around four in the morning the doctor at last told Abbie that the time had come to push. As she groaned and cursed, Crane tried to conceal his terror at her pain and struggle, murmuring prayers under his breath in counterpoint to the doctor’s coaching. _I see the head now…nice and slow, no hurry…one more push…_

And then an indignant wail rent the morning air. “You have a son.” 

Dr. Hong held the baby aloft for Abbie and Crane to see. Through watering eyes Crane caught an impression of a startled face topped by a thick shock of black hair, blindly flailing hands and twitching limbs. His son and Abbie’s. Already he loved him. “So tiny,” he said in wonder.

Abbie sob-laughed and gave him a soft punch in the shoulder. “What are you talking about? He’s _huge._ ”

The doctor chuckled. “Actually, he’s just the right size.”

Next came a certain amount of bustle Crane couldn’t completely follow—delivery of the afterbirth, examination of the baby at a little table evidently set aside for that purpose. He weighed eight pounds, one ounce—that much was comprehensible—and had apgars of eight and nine, which Crane concluded was a good thing by how it pleased all the others in the room.

But at last one of the nurses brought the infant to Abbie and laid him in her arms. Crane leaned more closely in and stretched out a cautious finger to touch a tiny hand. The baby seized it in a surprisingly firm grip, staring up at them out of wide, dark, smoke-colored eyes.

“Hullo, son,” Crane murmured.

Abbie smoothed the baby’s hair. “Isaiah?” she asked, glancing up at Crane for just a moment before returning her attention to the child.

“Isaiah,” he agreed. 

Much to his startlement, she turned her head to place a soft, swift kiss on his cheek.

***

A few hours later, after Abbie had slipped into an exhausted sleep, Crane found himself walking the corridors of the maternity ward with a fitfully fussy Isaiah tucked carefully in his arms. He was terrified he’d drop the child, or not support its head properly, but Abbie must have her rest. In a moment of inspiration he tried singing softly, and Isaiah quieted and regarded him out of those big, curious eyes.

“We’ve got to teach you some proper lullabies.”

Crane hadn’t even noticed Miss Jenny’s approach. “He _likes_ my sea shanty.”

She shrugged noncommittally and stroked an infant hand. “Abbie’s asleep?”

He nodded.

“Did you get the birth certificate taken care of?”

“Isaiah August Crane Mills,” he answered. He would not have presumed to ask to have his name included, not when he’d only just returned, but when Abbie had made the offer he’d agreed with alacrity.

Miss Jenny’s eyebrows rose. “Hyphenated?”

“No. We gave him two middle names.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Well, so many names might be a trifle excessive for a non-royal child,” he allowed.

“No, I mean that he doesn’t have _your_ last name.”

“Why should it?” 

“Well, in your day…”

Isaiah fussed again, so Crane made his voice into a infant-soothing croon as he answered. “There are a great many things I miss about my day. Syllabub from the cow, for one. Turtle soup and treacle dowdy. Dances with set steps, and the sweep of a woman’s skirt as she crosses a room. The general formality that made familiarity between friends and lovers take on so much greater significance. I do not miss its bigotry and injustices, including the notion that a father’s name and lineage have greater weight than a mother’s. Not to mention,” he added, meeting Miss Jenny’s eyes, “it would be arrogant in the extreme, for me to appear yesterday, after a nine-month absence, and insist that he be called Isaiah _Crane._ ”

“Hmph. You’re just trying to keep me from deciding to kill you after all.”

“On the contrary. I know myself to be perfectly safe as long as I am holding your nephew.”

“You’re perfectly safe as long as you _stay._ If you leave again, if you abandon my sister and my nephew, I _will_ hunt you down.”

“No fear of that.”

“There’d better not be.” And then she abruptly thawed and held out her arms. “Here, let me hold him. And let’s go check if Abbie is awake yet.”


	8. Chapter 8

They left the hospital the next morning, Miss Jenny driving while Crane rode shotgun and Abbie sat in the back murmuring soothing things to a fussy Isaiah in his car seat. 

“So where are we taking Crane?” Miss Jenny asked as she drove out of the hospital parking garage.

They had not discussed that at all, he realized. He would not presume to invite himself to take up residence in Abbie’s home. But surely if he was truly to play his part in raising their son, he could do so far more effectively if he wasn’t at several miles remove.

“It’s been at least three months since I was last at the cabin,” Abbie commented. “Who knows what kind of shape it’s in? He’d be better off coming with me for now—at least, if you want to.”

“Of course I do,” he said. Did she truly doubt it?

“I don’t really have a spare bedroom anymore,” she said. “We made it into the baby’s room.”

“I’ve slept on your couch before,” he said quickly.

Miss Jenny’s eyebrows lifted, but she drove them to Abbie’s house without further comment.

They settled into a routine that for the first long weeks centered upon keeping Isaiah alive, with a maximum of eating and sleeping and a minimum of wailing. Crane read the books Abbie had promised on the development and proper care of infants, and soon became expert at changing diapers, quickly fastening a swaddling blanket, and singing the baby to sleep with just the right soft bouncing motion as he paced the floor.

He also considered it his duty to make sure Abbie ate and slept too, helped along by a procession of coworkers, neighbors, and friends who kept appearing with offerings of casserole, soup, or pizza in exchange for a look at the baby. Crane endured their curiosity and significant looks directed at him with equanimity. It wasn’t as though there was any hope of explaining the circumstances—and now he was back and Isaiah was his son. Nothing else mattered.

Sheriff Reyes came by eight days after the birth and just before Thanksgiving bearing tamales and apologies for not having visited sooner. “Busy week at the precinct,” she commented. “We’ll be glad to have you back, Abbie—not that we expect you to rush.”

Abbie smiled. “If my FMLA math is right, I’ll see you sometime in February.”

The sheriff nodded agreement and beckoned Crane to come closer so she could make her requisite inspection of the baby. Isaiah had just eaten his fill at his mother’s breast and then fallen asleep to Crane’s best rendition of _The Rich Lady Over the Sea,_ and as a result was quite as content and peaceful in appearance as he had yet been in his short life. Crane rather hoped that Sheriff Reyes would make her visit short so all of them could have a nap.

“My, what a handsome young gentleman,” she said softly. “He looks like you,” she added with a glance up at Crane.

“Doesn’t he?” Abbie remarked from her post in a cushioned rocking chair, sparing the dumbfounded Crane from any need to reply. “I think it’s the big head.”

When Reyes left, very shortly after catching Abbie failing to conceal a yawn, Abbie and Crane walked together to lay Isaiah in his crib and gaze down upon his slumbering form.

“Does he really look like me?” he asked. To him the baby looked more _new_ than anything else, his features too soft and unformed to greatly resemble either of his parents beyond having coloring somewhere between the two.

Abbie glanced up at him through narrowed eyes. “Totally. He’s got your forehead and eyebrows—the shape of them, anyway—and your hands, too. Look at those long fingers.”

Now Crane saw it—or at least an echo of his memory of his younger brother when they had both been small children. “But your chin, I think,” he said. “And the shape of the eyes, too.”

“Mm, I think you’re right.” She slid her hand into his and tugged softly. “Here, let’s go try to rest while we can.”

He allowed her to lead him into her bedroom, where she flopped onto the bed, not even bothering to draw back the counterpane, and patted the spot beside her. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it, though he resisted the urge to curl closer to her. There was certainly room enough for both of them on her king-sized bed. “Please understand,” he said into what was becoming an awkward silence, “I do not doubt what happened in 1781, or that he is my son. I’m simply not accustomed to recognizing my own features so miniaturized.”

She reached across the wide bed to take his hand. “It’s all right. I mean, I couldn’t really blame you if you did doubt. You weren’t there, not exactly, anyway. Different you, different timeline. All you’ve got to go on is my word.”

He tightened his grip. “But it’s _your_ word. For me, that is sufficient. Which isn’t to say that the situation isn’t…very odd.”

She yawned and curled onto her side facing him. “Hey, it’s still odd to me, and I was there and had nine months to come to terms with our little consequence. You’re doing great.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. He was trying, at least. He hoped it would be enough.

They fell asleep hand in hand.

***

Later that evening all three of them fell asleep on the couch, Isaiah first, then Abbie, the remote slipping from her fingers for Crane to catch as they watched a _House Hunters_ marathon. He tried to stay awake long enough to see which house was chosen—he knew Abbie would ask—but dropped off while the couple was still arguing the relative merits of a formal dining room versus a large backyard. 

He awoke with a start to Abbie gently tapping his shoulder and calling his name. 

“What? Where? Baby?” he said, trying to shake his mind clear of fog.

“It’s OK. I just put him down in the crib. You should come to bed, too.”

“This _is_ my bed.” As exhausting as the past week had been, he still remembered where he was supposed to sleep.

“There’s plenty of room for you in my bed. Sleeping on that couch every night can’t be doing your back any favors—it always gives me a stiff neck, and I’m not a giant.”

He rubbed his dry eyes. “I’ve slept in far more uncomfortable places, and my back is in fine shape. I’m convinced that good posture and varied activity matter more than—”

“Hush. All I’m saying is—no need for you to sleep on a lumpy couch that’s at least a foot shorter than you are. It’s just for sleeping—”

“I know,” he hastened to assure her. Abbie’s doctor had taken him aside just before they’d left the hospital to make sure he understood that he was not to have sex with her until she’d been given the medical all-clear at some point at least four weeks hence. Even aside from their particular odd circumstances, which the doctor couldn’t possibly begin to guess at, he’d hardly been able to conceal his indignation at being taken for such a heartless and thoughtless cad that he would need such a warning. What kind of man could witness a woman endure the ordeal of birth and even consider foisting his attentions upon her before she’d been given ample time for recovery?

“But I’d like to have you near me,” she said softly.

“Would you?”

“If you want to be.”

“Of course I do,” he breathed, and from that night forward sharing a bed became part of their routine.

As November slipped toward December, each night they slid a little closer until they lay together in the middle of the big bed, Abbie curled up spoon-fashion in his arms. At first they were both so exhausted that there was nothing more to it than sharing the comfort and warmth of each other’s presence. But as they fell into a routine and Isaiah began sleeping for slightly longer stretches, Crane found himself waking up with a cockstand as often as not, and edging away in the hope that Abbie wouldn’t notice.

Once he awoke before dawn from a vividly erotic dream involving Abbie and a particular table in the archives. He tried to draw back, but she held his hand firm around her waist and even stretched luxuriantly against him. “That must’ve been some dream,” she said sleepily.

“I am so sorry I woke you,” he murmured into her hair, glad she couldn’t see how his face flamed with shame.

“You kept saying my name.” She chuckled softly. “It was flattering.”

“But—I—” he sputtered. “I haven’t wanted to presume.”

“I know.” She twisted in his arms until she lay facing him. “And I appreciate that, I really do. But now I’m giving you my permission to presume a little, if you want.” And she palmed his erection through his fleece pajama pants.

“Abbie,” he gasped. “We can’t.”

She slid a small, dexterous hand under his waistband. “I can’t have sex yet,” she corrected. “That doesn’t mean I can’t touch.” Her hand stilled for a moment. “Unless you want me to stop.”

He answered her with a kiss. He’d never imagined their first kiss like this, hot and hungry in the darkness, with her hand busy at his cock. They were doing everything so out of order, and he wished he could woo and court her properly first, devote himself to her pleasure. But the dream was still so vivid in his mind, her hand so clever and sure as she stroked and squeezed, that he came within minutes, groaning her name.

He was ready to ask her if she wanted him to touch her too, if she was ready for that, but she settled in his arms with a contented yawn that was an answer in itself. “Are we…?” he asked as he tucked the blankets more firmly over them.

“Going to be lovers in this century?” she finished.

Bless her for her bluntness. “Yes.”

She pressed a kiss into his shoulder. “Maybe even this year.”

“When do you…?”

“I see the doctor end of next week.” She chuckled sleepily. “We could be each other’s Christmas present. Think I’ve even got some red satin sheets we could wrap ourselves up in.”

His mind spun dizzily at the mental image. “A happy Christmas indeed.”

As he listened to Abbie’s soft, sleeping breaths, Crane reflected that while he could not imagine a more unconventional route to this place, he was exactly where he was meant to be.


End file.
